


The house on the edge of forever

by sorcxita



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorcxita/pseuds/sorcxita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry thinks his life is over and Louis’s already is, but somewhere between life and death there's a place for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Born again to be free

**Author's Note:**

> Very, very AU. Chapter titles are from Alistair Griffin’s Albion Sky.

 

The neat progression of his life story cracks suddenly and unexpectedly when Harry is sixteen. There's no warning, no time to prepare; a knock on the door at six o'clock on a rainy Wednesday morning and Harry's entire world splinters and falls apart around him.

Months pass, and for nearly a year Harry's life is nothing more than the court case and the media frenzy and journalists ringing the door bell and photographers taking pictures of him walking to school. His mum and Gemma crying – Harry tries to be strong for them but it feels like it's not enough, he can't keep them safe and he can't change what's happened – and people he thought were friends turning their back on him, not because of anything he's done but simply because of who he is, what his dad's done.

Two weeks after the court case is finally done, his mum breaks the news that they have to move and that, at least, is something Harry is prepared for; he knows they don't have the money for _anything_ these days, let alone paying the mortgage. The night before they leave Holmes Chapel he goes for a walk at midnight, saying a silent, almost reverential goodbye to the life he's not a part of any more, the novel he's been written out of. The streets are quiet and deserted and his breath frosts in the cold January air

They all get up early the next morning. They don't have to be out of the house until noon but at 9 o'clock Gemma says, "Shall we go?" and that's all it takes; none of them can face sitting around all morning. Harry and Gemma load the suitcases and boxes into the car and it hits Harry all over again just how little they have now: what's left in the house is boxed and stacked in the kitchen, waiting for Harry's uncle to come and pick it up later with a van.

Harry stands in the doorway of his bedroom and looks around for the last time. Now it's actually come to it, he doesn't feel any of the things he thought he'd feel. Without his bed and his desk and his music blaring out and his posters on the wall it's not _his_ any more; it's just a blank canvas, waiting for the next owners to come along and make their own mark on it. He closes the door on it and goes downstairs, where Gemma and his mum are waiting for him.

No one comes out of their houses to say goodbye but Harry can feel the weight of their neighbours' stares all the same and he hates them all, suddenly; a wave of sudden, visceral hatred like nothing he's ever felt before for their smug, silent condemnation. He was at school with their kids, they've watched him grow up, they know him, they know Gemma, they know his mum ... and now they're standing by and watch them leave their lives without even an _acknowledgement_ of their shared history and it hurts more than Harry cares to admit.

"Want me to drive?" he asks his mum as she locks the front door of their house for the last time.

She shakes her head. "It's all right."

"Are you sure?" The temperature is still below freezing; frost in the air and he knows she doesn't like driving in weather like this.

"I need to do this, Harry." She forces a smile, discreetly wiping away unshed tears. "Come on. Head held high, ok?"

"Ok," Harry lies.

He doesn't bother looking back as the car pulls away from everything he's ever known.

 

~*~

It starts to snow during the journey, as the M62 leads them east, rising into the Pennines. Gently at first, and then as they reach Saddleworth, the highest point, the flakes get bigger and start to settle. The traffic in front slows down and Harry wonders if they're going to get stuck up here on the bleak and desolate moor. His mum has gone pale – she doesn't like driving in snow anyway and the cars in the outside lane are going too fast, darting in and out of the middle lane in front of them as they jockey for position – and her hands grip the steering wheel tightly.

"This is fun," Gemma mutters.

"We'll be all right," his mum says, and it sounds like she's trying to convince herself more than them.

They're all on edge by the time the motorway starts to descend, even when the snow turns to rain somewhere near Bradford. The sky ahead of them is so dark it feels like the day is over already and it's not even lunch time. Harry closes his eyes and dozes for a while, and when he opens them again they've arrived at their new house.

Harry hates it on sight. A squat, square pebble-dashed pre-war semi with a brown wooden door and cracked concrete drive, in a street of identically drab, run-down houses. The front garden is mostly weeds, interspersed with litter and what looks like part of a car engine. The junction box outside the house has been graffitied with the legend _welcome to hell_.

No one says anything for a moment and then his mum says:

"Let's get inside then, shall we?"

Harry nods and tries not to look as miserable as he feels as he unclips his seatbelt and opens his door. It's just starting to rain and the wetness feels like tears on his face.

The house doesn't look any better close to. It looks...tired. Tired and worn and shabby, as if no one ever cared enough about it to look after it, fix the cracks and paint over the wear and tear of the passing years. The door wobbles on its hinges when his mum unlocks it.

"That's good," Gemma says sarcastically.

"We can get that looked at," his mum says and Harry feels that strange lurching sensation in his stomach that has become a familiar friend over the last few months, every time his mum says things, simple things, that hark back to a life they no longer have. A life that means when something going wrong it can be easily fixed by _getting someone in_ , when his mum's bankcard doesn't get rejected at the supermarket checkout, when Harry doesn't have to go to school in a coat that lets in the rain.

His mum warily pushes the door open and steps forward into a dark, narrow hallway. Gemma and Harry follow. The hallway smells musty and dry, like old books.

“Someone liked brown,” Gemma says, poking her foot into the threadbare carpet.

Another door directly in front of the front door opens into a gloomy, cold living room. It's like something out of a museum; the furniture looks like props from an old movie and the only sign of the 21st-century that Harry can see is the television in the corner. Gemma makes a sound that might be a laugh or a cry of horror.

"Great, back to the 40s."

"It's got _atmosphere_ ," his mum says cautiously, looking around. "We'll get used to it. We were lucky the house came furnished."

Harry looks down at the mustard-coloured carpet, which matches the mustard tiles around the ancient-looking gas fire. "Yeah, lucky." He tries not to, but he can't help thinking about their old house, how airy it was, how warm and welcoming. This house is about as welcoming as a tomb.

Another door takes them through into the kitchen. It's a long, narrow room that runs the length of the house, with a single window that looks over the front garden at one end and the back door at the other. The walls are panelled in a dark wood that make the room even gloomier but the gloom doesn't quite disguise the livid orange units or the green carpet.

The three of them stand in horrified silence for a moment and then Gemma says, "Well, at least they updated in here."

"To the 70s." His mum pokes one of the orange units with a finger, as if she can't quite believe what she's seeing. "Oh, these are _awful_."

"We could paint them," Harry says, and for some reason they all start laughing at that even though it's not funny; silly, hysterical laughter that probably borders on hysteria.

Upstairs isn't much better, as Harry discovers when they start unpacking the car. The stairs themselves are positively lethal; steep and narrow and perilously slippery right at the point where they turn. There are two reasonably-sized bedrooms and one tiny box room. Harry takes one look at the flowery horror of one bedroom and the 70s ochre of the other and announces that he will take the box room, overruling his mum's protests. It's not like he needs the space, anyway.

The box room has a single bed, a battered desk that looks to be the same vintage as the furniture downstairs, and a built-in wardrobe, and the single window looks out over the front garden. Harry thinks it's probably the nicest room in the entire house.

"My curtains are _orange_ ," Gemma complains as she and Harry carry her suitcases upstairs. "I didn't even know you could _buy_ curtains like that."

"You probably can't, these days," Harry says. "At least you haven't got the flowers."

"Did you _see_ it? Someone's actually wallpapered the ceiling in that room."

"Maybe they really liked flowers." Harry looks out of her window at the back garden below. Most of what he can see is heavily overgrown but it looks like there's a greenhouse in there somewhere.

"Maybe they were just deranged." Gemma makes a show of checking their mum isn't within earshot. "Whoever had this house before was probably a serial killer. Bodies in the cellar."

"There isn't a cellar," Harry points out.

"In the shed, then. There'll be bodies somewhere."

Harry leaves her to her unpacking and goes to finish his. The room feels a little bit more like his when he's done, though he's not sure he's going to sleep well on the thin mattress. There isn't even a duvet, just sheets and blankets, and he thinks they must be old too, and full of dust, because he gets so out of breath he has to sit down for a few minutes before he can shove his suitcase under the bed.

Dinner is spaghetti hoops on toast, eaten in near-silence, as if none of them quite dare to start to speak in case they can't stop. Tomorrow they'll talk; tomorrow they'll start to make the best of it: today is too overwhelming and shattering for words. Harry isn't entirely sorry to go to bed early but it takes him a long time to fall asleep in a bed that is new and unfamiliar and with the moonlight streaming in through the thin curtains, and when he finally does fall asleep he dreams of roaring flames and tears in his eyes and acrid, stinging smoke in his lungs.


	2. Why the hell can't we all live together

The first time he sees Louis, he almost, almost doesn't. The moon is waning, its light muted, so at first Harry isn't quite sure what he's seeing, only that one moment he's alone in his bedroom and the next Louis is there with him.

Harry doesn't know his name then, of course; that comes later. That first time, Harry can only stare, speechless and overwhelmed, because Louis is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, almost inhumanly perfect as he stands at the window, his features thrown into sharp relief by the moon's light. There's something strange about that light, something not quite right, but Harry can't put his finger on the reason for the nagging sense of _wrongness_. It doesn't seem to matter anyway. 

It never occurs to him to be afraid that there is a stranger in his room, because somehow Harry knows that Louis means him no harm, and he watches Louis, silent in the moonlight, until the shadows shift and when he opens his eyes again it's morning and Gemma has the radio on full volume next door and his mum is shouting for him to get up for school. 

Harry can think of any number of things he'd rather do than go to school; walking over hot coals being just one of them. In the three weeks they've been here he's made precisely zero friends in his year group, who have divided themselves into two groups: those who just ignore him and those who have seemingly made it their mission in life to torment the newcomer, the outsider with the funny accent. The fact that his dad's in prison doesn't seem to worry anyone – it seems to be a perfectly respectable career path as far as a lot of them are concerned – but it's enough that he isn't _one of them._

More than once Harry thinks about getting on a bus and going back to Holmes Chapel, pretending that nothing has changed. He even dreams about it – everything back to how it was, how it should have been – and every time he does he wakes to the crushing realisation that it's nothing but a dream. Sometimes he thinks too about getting on a bus and going somewhere where no one knows or cares who he is, where he's nothing more than a face in the crowd. The thought is an appealing one, a pleasant daydream that has no chance of becoming reality because, even if he could afford the bus fare, he couldn't just up and leave his mum and his sister. 

When Harry leaves the house he walks past the bus stop and keeps on going, head down, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. It's a good start to the day: someone tries to trip him up and a group of girls repeatedly try to yank his rucksack off his shoulder and a boy in the year above slams him into a wall just outside the school, but it's not so bad, as mornings go. The last three weeks have lowered his standards considerably as to what constitutes a _good_ day: being sent tumbling down the stairs on his birthday was a gentle introduction as to what he could expect and no one's showing any sign of letting up any time soon. 

It gets worse at lunchtime though; they never let him eat in peace but today there's not even an attempt at subtlety. A boy from the year above gets in his way as he's looking for somewhere to sit and Harry doesn't want confrontation; he takes a step back, right into another of them, and that's all the excuse they need to start on him. Harry goes down, hard, when his feet are kicked out from under him, his tray and its contents scattered across the floor. He hears the laughter and the jeering in the background as he vainly tries to dodge the kicks and punches coming now from every angle. This isn't play-fighting; they're actively trying to hurt him and it's terrifying because there's no _reason_ for it. Harry could – if not accept it – at least understand it if he'd done something to deserve their hatred but they seem to do it just because they _can_. 

And then, suddenly, they're _not_ hitting him, and Harry becomes aware that he is at the epicentre of an expanding circle, with someone standing over him, leaning down over him. 

"Come on, get up." 

The voice is authoritative, but kind. Harry blinks away the water in his eyes and tries to lever himself up but his left arm isn't quite working properly and he hears someone snigger as he slips back. A firm hand takes hold of his other arm and pulls him to his feet. 

"Come on, up you get." 

"What about the mess he's made?" a girl says from somewhere behind Harry. It might be her, or someone else, who jostles him, fingertips digging into his back. 

"Clean it up yourself, if you care that much," his saviour says, and he's pulling Harry along with him, somehow finding a way through the mob that surrounds them, and Harry just keeps his head down and concentrates on walking, one foot in front of the other, because it feels like the walls are closing in on him and it hurts to breathe. 

"You ok?" his saviour asks when they get outside and Harry finally looks properly at him and recognises him – vaguely. He's in the year above, along with the two boys who have followed them out. Harry doesn't think they've ever spoken and he can't imagine why the other boy bothered to step in to help him out. 

"Yeah." Harry starts to cough as he speaks; there's blood in his mouth, trickling down the back of his throat. 

"You look like shit," one of the other boys says. "Did they break your nose?" 

Harry prods at it experimentally. "N-no. I don't think so." 

"Maybe you should go to hospital," the third boy says. 

"No," Harry says quickly, imagining his mum's reaction to _that_. "I'm fine." 

"Here." His saviour hands him a tissue. "Pinch the bridge of your nose and lean forward; that'll stop the bleeding." 

"Bleedin- oh." Harry looks down at his shirt in dismay. He looks like he's been stabbed; his mum's going to kill him. "Right." 

"I'm Liam, by the way," his saviour continues. "And these idiots are Niall and Zayn. Don't mind them." 

"Hey!" Niall says indignantly. 

"I'm Harry." 

"We know," Niall says. Zayn elbows him. There's an awkward silence. Harry is getting used to those. One day, he thinks, he'll meet someone who doesn't know who he is. 

“Come on,” Liam says eventually. “I've got a spare t shirt; it'll probably fit you.” 

“I can't wear a t shirt.” 

“Fine; sit like that all afternoon then,” Liam says, looking pointedly at Harry's shirt. 

“Um, yeah, good point. Sorry. I mean, thanks.” 

They sit on the grass bank behind the gym, out of the way and away from curious and downright hostile eyes. Harry's nose stops bleeding after a while and the feeling starts coming back in his arm. He isn't sure whether he's meant to go away or not – he's in the year below and for all he knows he's just an annoying kid to them – but they don't seem to mind him sitting with them and Niall shares a packet of crisps with him that almost – almost – makes up for the fact that he hasn't had any lunch. He feels a bit sick anyway, and he's happy to just sit and listen to them talk about football and the new music teacher Zayn can't stop staring at, and not think about the fact that he still has an entire afternoon to get through and then somehow find his way home. 

He finds himself thinking about his dream instead, the boy at the window. Harry doesn't normally have such vivid dreams; his dreams tend towards the abstract and the obscure. He's read – somewhere – that dreams are fragmented memories, the brain's way of making sense of experiences. That doesn't make sense to Harry. He doesn't remember ever seeing the boy in the moonlight before, but he knows, in an oddly guilty way, that he wants to see him again. 

“Hey,” Zayn says, nudging his leg. “You ok?” 

Harry flushes. “Yeah. Yeah, just daydreaming.” He can smell smoke; something burning. It's probably a car; the patch of waste ground behind the school seems to be the dumping ground for stolen cars once anything worth taking has been ripped out. 

“Dangerous,” Niall says, grinning. 

“Round here, yeah.” Zayn scowls at a couple of kids watching them. “Keep your eyes open, mate.” 

The wail of a siren can be heard now; a fire engine on its way to extinguish the fire. They all turn their heads to watch it flash past. 

“I don't know why they bother coming,” Liam says, reaching into his bag for a chocolate bar to hand to Niall. “They could let it burn.” 

“Got to, haven't they,” Zayn says with a yawn. “In case it goes boom. Again.” 

Distracted, Harry asks, “Why would it go boom?” 

“Gas cylinders,” Liam explains. “They put them in the car, as booby traps.” 

“And razor blades taped to the underside of the handbrake,” Niall adds. 

“And needles in the seat cushions.” Zayn yawns again. 

“Why?” 

Liam shrugs. “Why not? Because they can. Bit of excitement.” 

Harry thinks about that all afternoon, because maybe his life to date has just been too _nice_ but he doesn't really understand the need to damage, to destroy, just for its own sake. He doesn't even think it's that bad an estate – or, it could be ok, if people cared about it and didn't see a new bus shelter as target practice. He's seen seven year old kids throwing bricks at buses at ten o'clock at night and he just doesn't _get_ it and he's not sure they do either. There's some new graffiti on the wall opposite the school gates, an untidy scrawl Harry's seen before. Whoever did it doesn't seem to have much imagination or need for variety; maybe, Harry thinks, he or she is just as frustrated as Harry is, all hope sucked out of them long before the day they first grabbed a can of spray paint. 

_Welcome to hell_ , it says, as if Harry doesn't already know.


	3. If I tell you all my secrets tonight

"It'll get easier," Gemma tells him as she finishes putting the plaster on the scrape on Harry's arm. She sounds about as convinced as Harry feels.

"Yeah," Harry says. He's cold and wet and just _tired_ of it all; today has been a particularly bad day and coming home to find they'd had a power cut had been pretty much the last straw. It's been a miserable March, weather-wise, and without heating the house is cold and unpleasantly damp. "Only another year of school, right?"

Gemma smooths his curls back and smiles at him. "That's the spirit."

Harry makes dinner for the two of them – at least they have a gas stove so old it doesn't rely on electricity – while Gemma finds some candles for light and goes through his sodden rucksack to see what she can salvage. An extra serving goes in the fridge, for his mum, later. She's working late again, and although Harry doesn't like either that or her creepy boss who insists on giving her a lift home, he knows they need the money. He just hopes the fridge is going to stay cold enough that they don't have to start throwing food away.

They sit in the kitchen and eat in silence. The flickering candlelight doesn't so much illuminate as outline the shadows, and Harry can't shake the feeling that, somehow, they're not entirely alone.

"Warming up?" Gemma asks when they've finished and they're waiting for the saucepans of water on the stove to boil so they can wash up.

"A bit," Harry lies. He's not; he can't even feel his feet.

"You should say something, at school."

"What are they going to do?" Harry asks incredulously. "Tell me to hit back? I tried that and they threw me in the fucking river."

Gemma pulls a face. "Ok. Yeah. I could walk you to school, maybe."

"I'm seventeen, not seven." Harry tries to imagine the reaction if he arrived at school with his sister in tow. "It's ok. It is."

Gemma nods, as if she can understand everything Harry can't say, and maybe she can: Harry knows it hasn't been easy for her either. The shadow that hangs over all of them isn't of their making but they can't escape it. Maybe in time he'll find a way of dealing with it but he's not there yet.

"Should we leave a candle burning, for Mum?"

"I'll wait up," Gemma says. "I need to do some reading, anyway." She points at a pile of textbooks on the counter. "You go to bed. Take a candle so you don't break your neck on those stairs."

"I can find my way," Harry says defensively, but he takes the candle anyway and he's glad he did, because the dark closes in around him in the hallway, and it almost seems like the tiny flame in his hand is struggling to exist against the weight of it. Harry tells himself he's being an idiot, imagining things that aren't there, but he can't shake the feeling that there's _something_ , a brooding, quietly malevolent presence surrounding him, watching him, and it takes every bit of willpower he possesses to go up the stairs, into the cloying darkness. He cleans his teeth faster than he's ever done before and goes to his room and shuts the door and lets out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. 

Harry strips off his damp, muddy clothes and tumbles into bed. He hesitates for a moment about the candle but for some reason he can't quite put his finger on he feels _safe_ in here, the door closed against whatever's out there on the landing. He blows out the candle and curls up on his side and lets exhaustion take him away.

~*~

When Harry opens his eyes again it's still dark and he's no longer alone.

"There you are," Louis says, and he's _looking_ at Harry this time, his features softened by the waning moonlight, so beautiful it takes Harry's breath away. 

"This is a very realistic dream," he mumbles eventually.

Louis smiles, the shadows shifting over the planes of his face. "I was going to say the same thing,” he says. 

"This is my dream," Harry says doggedly. "You're in my dream."

Louis moves towards the bed and Harry sits up and wonders which part of his subconscious put Louis together to populate his dreams: _Torchwood_ for the clothes, he thinks. Louis' outfit – what he can make out of it, anyway – is Jack Harkness all the way. Harry wants to touch, a sudden impulse he can't control; he reaches out, blindly, and his fingers brush against soft, pliant fabric and beneath that – Harry can't stop touching, can’t help exploring – Louis' thigh; muscle and heat and so very, very _real_. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but Louis is right _there_ , leaning over the bed, his hand on Harry's shoulder, thumb rubbing at Harry's collar bone, and Harry's mouth goes dry.

"This is a dream," Louis says, very quietly, as if he doesn't really want Harry to hear. "This isn't real."

Harry presses his fingers harder into Louis' thigh and Louis' breath hitches and Harry really, really likes that sound. "No, it's not," he agrees. "It's a _good_ dream though."

He feels rather than hears Louis laugh, close against his shoulder now, and it's instinct to turn his head, instinct that fits his lips against Louis' mouth. Louis goes very still and Harry starts to panic – getting rejected in his _dreams_ has to be a whole new low – but then Louis lets out a small, quiet sigh and his hand comes up to cup Harry's face and that's all it takes. 

It feels like Louis was made for him - and it’s ridiculous and fanciful but Harry can't get enough, can't touch enough, and Louis is wearing too many layers and his impatience makes him just as clumsy as Harry, but it's enough, in the end; Louis' shirt rucked up and his trousers unfastened and pushed down just enough that they're skin to skin, desperate, delicious friction. Louis kisses Harry through it when he comes, pets his hair and holds him close as Harry lies shivering and gasping for breath afterwards. 

Harry feels so happy, so blissfully content, it feels like his heart is about to burst out of his chest. 

"Have you- have you done that before?" Louis asks. They're still wrapped together in a tangle of limbs and even though he's sticky and overheated Harry doesn't want to let go of Louis and Louis doesn't seem to want to let go of him either, as if one or both of them will disappear if they don’t hold on.

"No." Harry turns his head to study Louis' profile. "Have you?"

Louis' lips turn up in a smile. "No. I mean, not like that. With girls. A girl."

"Oh," Harry says, and it's ridiculous to feel jealous; everything about this is ridiculous. He doesn't know anything about Louis, this stranger in his head, his imaginary – well, Harry isn't sure _what_ Louis is meant to be. 

Louis turns his head too, and they're staring at each other, inches apart. "It didn't feel like that," Louis says softly.

When Louis tells him his name, later, it feels like a kiss on his lips.

~*~

"You look like shit," Niall says bluntly the next morning. "Did you even sleep?"

The three of them are leaning against the wall of the next house down, as if they have nothing better to do than wait for Harry, and Harry is ridiculously, stupidly happy to see them again. He's still giddy, too, with the afterglow of his dream, the sense memory of Louis' hands on his body.

"What are you doing here?" he asks. 

Liam looks at the others and clears his throat. "Well, we, um ... that is, we-"

"What he's trying to say," Niall cuts in, "Is that we heard what happened to you yesterday."

"And we thought we'd walk you to school," Zayn said.

Harry feels his face heat. "I don't need babysitters."

"No, but you need someone to stop you getting thrown in the river," Liam says bluntly, and then looks apologetic. "Sorry."

"Besides," Zayn adds, "three's a crowd, four's company." He looks meaningfully at Liam and Niall. "If you know what I mean."

"Fuck off," Niall says amiably, as Liam goes a bright, beetroot red.

Harry looks between them, not really sure what's going on but reminded – yet again – how much of an outsider he is. He's still trying to think of something to say when Liam says:

"Come on; don't want to be late."

Harry still isn't sure why they're actually being nice to him but it feels _good_ to feel halfway normal again, to talk to people and have them answer back without disdain or outright hostility. He could get to like this, he thinks.

"Here," Zayn says, holding out a bag of Haribo. "You look like you need the sugar."

"Thanks. I think."

They walk to school, Zayn bumping elbows with Harry. It’s not actually raining, for a change, but there’s rain in the air and the biting wind makes it feel much colder than it actually is. Everything is grey - the sky, the houses, even the faces around him, pinched with cold and something more, a malaise that cuts to the depths of their soul.

“Haven’t seen you around much,” Harry says as they step over the scattered remains of the bus stop near the school. He tries and probably fails not to sound too desperate; he has missed them, and not just for the security they offer.

“Me and Liam were on an exchange trip.”

“It was very cultural,” Liam supplies, deadpan.

“And Niall here was suspended.”

“Right before exams, mate; terrible.”

Niall has the grace to look faintly embarrassed, but before Harry can ask what he was suspended _for_ , a couple of girls from their year start calling across the road to them and the moment is gone.

It's only as he's packing up to leave that afternoon that Harry realises that no one has laid a finger on him all day.


	4. Never free from the ghosts that walk inside of me

The Easter holiday is meant to be about revision; he's got exams coming up and Harry knows he should be working but it's hard to find any enthusiasm for schoolwork and when his mother suggests he work off some of his untapped energy by clearing the jungle that is the back garden, Harry jumps at the chance. It's oddly satisfying to hack away the brambles and the weeds, bringing order to chaos and bringing to light what must've once been a well-kept garden. Mid-morning, their next-door neighbour comes out into his garden. Harry's seen him around a few times but they've never spoken so he's slightly taken aback when the man comes over to the fence that separates the gardens and says:

"You're doing a good job there."

"Thanks," Harry says warily.

"Hard work."

"It's okay," Harry says. "Gets me out of the house." He waves a hand in the general direction of the sky, which is unseasonably clear and blue.

"Most lads your age round here get out of the house to get pissed and throw bricks onto the dual carriageway," the man says mildly.

_It's not just the lads_ , Harry thinks. Most of the girls in his year seem to think fun involves smashing shop windows and ripping up the flowers the council keep trying to plant around the roundabout outside their school. "Not really my thing."

"No," the man says, giving him a knowing look. He holds out a hand. "Louis Field."

It's a coincidence, of course; there is no mistaking the old man in front of him for the Louis of his dreams, but it still startles Harry and it must be more obvious than he thinks because the man gives him a strange look before adding:

"I know your name; read about you in the paper." That's said mildly too, almost kindly. "And your dad. Not had an easy time, have you, son?"

Harry isn't quite sure whether to laugh or cry. "You could say that," he says, shaking the offered hand.

"Pay them no mind. I retire in four years, and when I do, I'm off. It's gone to hell round here. Used to be a nice area."

Harry can't really imagine it ever being a nice area but he thinks he might just be biased. He nods politely. "How long have you lived here?"

Field - Harry can't think of him as _Louis_ \- laughs. "All my life, son. I grew up in this house. Used to be my mother's, but she's in a home now. Nearly ninety, she is. Alzheimer's. The wife and I used to look after her ourselves but it got too much for us in the end; neither of us are as young as we used to be."

Harry tries to look sympathetic; he's not really sure what to say. Field doesn't seem to require any kind of response from him, though; he leans comfortably on the fence and casts a contemplative eye over the area Harry's cleared.

"Nice little garden this was, once. A vegetable patch right over there, and a greenhouse. Shame it got as overgrown as it has."

"How come it got so bad?" Harry asks, reaching down to pull out the roots of another sprawling weed.

"Ah." Field shakes his head. "Before you it was a funny lot - they only had it for six months. Before that, an old couple had it; they were friends with my grandparents, friends for forty-seven years, they were. That's a long time."

Harry nods, concentrating on attacking the next patch of brambles. Gemma comes out of the house with a drink for him and talks to Field for a while about a TV show Harry doesn't watch and something to do with the local library Harry has no interest in, and he tunes back in to find that Field has gone and Gemma is standing in front of him, watching him with an amused look on her face.

"What?" he says defensively.

"You were in a world of your own,” she says. “I never knew you liked gardening so much."

He's cleared half the garden. Harry feels oddly proud of himself. "It's good exercise."

Gemma’s smile widens. “Want to look good for your boyfriend, do you?”

“Zayn’s not my boyfriend,” Harry says quickly, because he knows what Gemma’s like and he doesn’t want her saying anything to Zayn next time he comes round. “We’re just friends.”

“Friends.” Gemma doesn’t exactly use air quotes but the possibility of them is heavily implied. “Is that why he’s here every other day?”

Harry folds his arms and glares at her. Gemma smiles back, unrepentant.

“It’s ok. I like him. I approve of him deflowering my little brother.”

Harry stalks back into the house, her laughter ringing in his ears. And the stupid thing is, he’s not exactly averse to the idea of Zayn _deflowering_ him but they haven’t even kissed yet and sometimes Harry thinks he’s misinterpreting everything, the way Zayn looks at him, the way he touches him like it’s accidental when they sit in Zayn’s bedroom listening to music. He doesn’t want to ruin everything by pushing it if Zayn doesn’t feel the same: he likes just being around Zayn, and with Liam and Niall too, and he doesn’t want to lose that before he has to, before they leave.

Niall comes round later with the textbook he’d promised to lend Harry and they sit in the garden drinking the beer Niall has brought, watching the sky darken as day turns to night. Harry’s happy to let Niall talk; like him, Niall was an outsider once but it doesn’t seem like Niall ever got the same treatment Harry got and eventually he has to ask the question. Niall grins.

“My uncle lives on Amberton Road. That was enough.”

“Is that where I went wrong? Not being related to someone?”

Niall laughs. “Mostly, yeah. But they’ll get used to you. It’s not so bad now, right?”

“Mostly because of you guys,” Harry points out.

“Yeah, well. You had Liam going into battle for you. That was impressive.”

Harry can’t work out if there’s anything behind Niall’s words. “Is- Are you two…” He trails off, unsure of how to finish the sentence, but Niall gets his meaning.

“Yeah.” He takes a swig of his beer, eyeing Harry. “That bother you?”

“No,” Harry says truthfully.

Niall nods and Harry thinks he might have just told him more than he intended because after a moment Niall says:

“Zayn likes you, you know.”

“I thought he liked girls,” Harry says, remembering the music teacher.

Niall snorts. “Zayn, ah, doesn’t like to restrict himself, if you know what I mean. Equal opportunities.”

“Right.”

“Don’t get me wrong; he’s all about you right now.”

Harry can feel his face getting hot but Niall isn’t laughing at him, just smiling in fond amusement as he raises his can for a mock toast.

“Go and see him, unless you want him to fail all his exams. He’s too busy pining over you to revise.”

And that’s a _ridiculous_ thought - Zayn sitting in his bedroom moping over Harry - but Harry can’t help smiling. “Ok, I’ll go and see him. Happy?”

“Good man. At least let him fail his exams for the right reasons.” 

Harry laughs, sprawling back on the newly-cut grass as the sun finally sinks below the horizon.

~*~

“You have so much hair,” Louis says, and Harry opens his eyes to see Louis standing by the wardrobe, hands in his pockets, smiling at Harry. The moon is bright and full tonight, and Louis somehow looks more _solid_ than Harry remembers, more real.

“Hi to you too,” Harry says, levering himself out of bed. “Where have you been?”

Louis steps forward to catch him as Harry momentarily loses his balance in his haste and stumbles. “What are you talking about, Curly?”

The hold Louis has on his hips draws Harry in; he gets a hand on Louis’ shoulder, a finger underneath one of his braces, tugging him closer. He doesn’t mean to kiss him but it happens so easily, as if their bodies already know exactly how to fit together without conscious thought, as if they were always meant to be like this.

“Hi,” Louis says, smirking, when Harry finally lets him go.

Harry knows he’s smiling stupidly but he can’t stop. “Sorry about that.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No,” Harry agrees, still grinning. 

“Anyone would think you haven’t seen me in a month,” Louis teases.

“I haven’t.”

Louis frowns, and Harry gets a ridiculous urge to kiss him again before he says any more, so he does, and Louis kisses him back, and Harry tugs on Louis’ braces again, trying to manoeuvre him towards the bed. Louis might be just a figment of his over-active imagination, nothing more than an artificial construct of his libido, but Harry can live with that just for how right it feels to hold him in his arms, for the way Louis looks when he comes, for the words he whispers when he thinks Harry can’t hear.

“Harry,” Louis says softly, when they’re lying together in Harry’s bed, their hands entwined over Harry’s heart. “My Harry.”

Harry turns his head just enough to catch the edge of his mouth and Louis freezes for a moment, caught out. Harry wants to tell him it’s all right, that it doesn’t matter, but he settles for a kiss instead, a reassuring hand on Louis’ wrist. He’s spent enough time thinking about Louis at inappropriate times to have worked out that Louis keeps a careful guard on his emotions and that fires something in Harry he never knew even existed; he wants to turn Louis inside out, work him out, map the tortuous paths of Louis’ psyche until Louis is a part of him in the same way Harry knows he’s already a part of Louis.

“You know I'm yours,” he tells him, truthfully, and he sees the spark he hopes for in Louis’ eyes.


	5. You try to find the truth but the answers lie within

Harry has to wonder what his exam results are going to be like, when the first three exams he sits are disrupted by four fire alarms, one name-calling and hair-pulling fight on the row behind, two instances of police turning up halfway through to question one or more of his year group and a sudden and dramatic end to the third exam when a paving slab smashes through a window. 

“Great school, isn’t it?” Niall says cheerfully, at Liam’s house that evening. Liam’s mum and dad are visiting his sister, which means they have the freedom to crash out in the living room without having to worry about anyone seeing. Liam’s parents, Harry has already discovered from Zayn, have no idea that their son likes boys and _definitely_ have no idea that he’s sleeping with Niall.

“It’s in the bottom ten in the whole country,” Zayn adds proudly. He winks at Harry, fake-yawns, and stretches his arm out along the back of the sofa, coincidentally putting his arm around Harry, a warm weight around his shoulders that send shivers down Harry’s spine.

“You’re so subtle, mate,” Liam scoffs.

“That’s just until he gets me into bed,” Harry says, and Liam goes red as Niall and Zayn start laughing.

Zayn walks him home, later. It’s dark by then and Harry is glad of the company, although he doesn’t feel unsafe walking around on his own any more. He still gets a few unfriendly looks now and then but no one’s really bothered him for months. It’s nice, though, that Zayn cares.

“How come you don’t do that shit?” he asks.

“What shit?”

Harry gestures across the road, where three boys from the year below are methodically ripping the seats out of a car and pouring lighter fluid over it. 

Zayn shrugs. “Who said I don’t?”

“I haven’t seen you,” Harry points out. He frowns. “Do you?”

“No. Not any more.”

Harry waits, but it soon becomes clear that he’s not going to get any more detail. Whatever Zayn did it’s in the past and Harry doesn’t get to access it. He gets that. There are plenty of things he doesn’t want to talk about either.

“Harry,” Zayn says, when they slow to a halt outside Harry’s house.

“Yeah?” The streetlight is out but it’s light enough for him to see Zayn’s face and he knows, _knows_ what this is, and he wants it too.

“Can- can I kiss you?”

 _Yes, please_ , Harry thinks, but he can’t speak; he just nods and Zayn smiles and moves closer and leans in and it’s … it’s good, it’s _really_ good. 

But it’s not Louis. There’s no spark, no ignition of that desperate, reckless need that overwhelms his senses and drags him down until there’s nothing but the two of them. Harry thinks he puts on a good act; when Zayn finally pulls back he’s smiling and Harry thinks he might be blushing, his hand still cupping Harry’s jaw like he can’t quite believe he’s allowed to touch.

“That was-” he says, sounding like he’s out of breath.

“Yeah,” Harry says, and smiles, because - _fuck_ \- he likes Zayn, he does, and he knows Zayn likes him too. “I should go. My mum’ll be worrying.”

“Mine too,” Zayn says, but he doesn’t let go. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“I have an exam tomorrow.”

Zayn has the grace to look embarrassed. “I know. I just thought we could- Um, just you and me. You know, do something. Afterwards.”

Harry kisses him again, because it seems like the right thing to do, and Zayn finally lets him go. “Yeah, ok. I’ll come over to yours, yeah?”

Zayn grins. “Yeah.”

By the time Harry gets the back door unlocked, Gemma and his mum are sitting nonchalantly at the kitchen table, drinking tea as if they weren’t watching him and Zayn from the window, lights turned off in an attempt to go unnoticed.

“Hello, darling,” his mum says with forced casualness as Harry kicks his shoes off. Gemma just winks at him. “Fun evening?”

“I hate the pair of you,” Harry says firmly, and goes to bed.

~*~

Louis presses a kiss to his cheek, his fingers carding gently through Harry’s hair as he whispers Harry’s name. Harry opens his eyes, disorientated from sleep, and wonders when he fell asleep, because the last thing he remembers is making revision notes at his desk and now he’s lying in bed with Louis standing over him and he has no idea when and how that happened.

“You smell of perfume,” Harry says groggily. “Why do you smell of perfume?” Louis smells of cigarette smoke and alcohol and sweat too but it’s the perfume that bothers Harry most.

Louis’ hand stills and Harry instinctively turns his head, butting against Louis’ arm until Louis starts petting him again.

“I went to a dance.” Louis sounds awkward, like he’s thinking through his words. 

“What kind of dance?”

“The usual kind. Big hall, a band, dancing.” This time Louis doesn’t resume his petting; he moves to sit on the bed instead. “Girls.”

“You danced with girls?” There’s a hot, tight feeling in Harry’s chest and it’s ridiculous; it’s been a month since he last saw Louis and this is _his_ dream and it’s turning into a nightmare and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

“ _A_ girl.” Louis shifts uncomfortably, his hand hovering over Harry’s arm so close Harry can feel the heat of him. “Hannah.”

“Hannah is-”

“She’s my girl. My girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Harry says numbly. He’s not really lost for words - there are _hundreds_ of words running around his head; he just can’t seem to get them formed up into any kind of order. And it’s ridiculous, it really is: he kissed Zayn; he has no moral high ground and no right to be angry at Louis.

“I-” Louis sounds equally lost for words but Harry thinks - viciously - that he deserves to choke on them anyway. Three times he’s seen Louis and it’s been perfect, it’s been _right_ , so much said between them without words - and now, the fourth time, it turns out that maybe words were needed after all and Harry’s just _livid_ , because Louis is _his_ and Harry doesn’t want to share.

“I don’t know why I care what you think,” Louis says, his voice so low Harry has to strain to hear him. “You’re not even real. None of this is real.”

“I’m real,” Harry protests, but Louis doesn’t seem to hear him.

“I was going to ask Hannah to marry me. I thought if I did, this would stop, that I’d stop thinking about you.” Louis stops abruptly.

“Oh,” Harry says, and then, because even if his heart is breaking he’s still curious, “Aren’t you a bit young to be getting married?”

“I’m nearly twenty, Harry,” Louis says patiently. “Old enough. And besides, you have to live for the moment, don’t you? You never know what’s going to happen.”

Harry pushes himself up, suddenly wanting to see Louis’ face. For the first time he realises that Louis is dressed differently to how he usually is when Harry sees him; he’s wearing some sort of jacket, with a collar and a belt and badges sewn on the front and sleeves. 

“You’re a soldier,” he says, wondering which part of his subconscious _this_ is from, tracing the larger of the three badges on Louis’ sleeve. 

He feels Louis laugh. “Close.” 

“What, then?”

“RAF.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“Not quite.” Louis guides Harry’s fingers to the insignia on his chest, over his heart, and Harry traces over the single wing. “I shouldn’t talk about this. Careless talk costs lives and that.”

Harry, stung, says, “Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s not like you think I’m real anyway.”

“Harry…” It sounds like it’s meant to be a reproach but it comes out more like a plea.

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Louis pulls back and stands up and as he does Harry realises that he can hear music, right on the edges of awareness - old music he doesn’t recognise but which has an odd familiarity, like an old film he’s watched on a thousand Sunday afternoons. Louis crosses the room to a table Harry is fairly sure wasn’t there earlier and the music gets louder, crackling with imperfections as stylus skips over vinyl.

“You’ll wake Gemma,” Harry says but suddenly he’s not sure it _will_. Something about the way the moon shines into the room through taped glass, the smell of coal dust in the air, tells him it’s not so much a case of _where_ they are but _when_. It makes no sense in any rational universe but it thrills Harry all the same that this is the first time that he’s stepped into Louis’ world rather than Louis into his.

“They played this tonight,” Louis says, giving no sign that he’s heard Harry’s protest. He hesitates and then adds, “It made me think of you.” He sounds embarrassed by the admission.

Harry kicks back the sheets. It’s cold out of bed, the bare floorboards rough under his feet. “What is it?”

“ _You made me love you_. Harry James.” Now Louis definitely is embarrassed, his words mumbled, eyes downcast. 

“It’s nice.” It’s not exactly the kind of music Harry normally listens to but he likes it. 

“I shouldn’t-” Louis cuts himself off abruptly, running a hand distractedly through his hair.

“What?”

“You. This.” Louis gestures between them, a quick, almost angry gesture. “It’s not, not _normal_.”

And that stings more than a bit but Harry thinks he’s worked out what’s going on here; he doesn’t have any doubts about what Louis feels for him but he’s a 21st century boy talking to a boy born more than half a century before him and he needs to make allowances for that. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” he says, trying to mask the very real anger and frustration he feels. He’s not angry with Louis, not really; it’s not Louis’ fault that he was born into the time and place he was. “I’m not real to you. So no one’s going to know what we do.”

Louis is silent for a long time, then, “Harry, I-”

“What?”

Louis hesitates, before reaching up to cup Harry’s jaw, thumb rubbing gently across Harry’s cheekbone. “You’re real to me,” he says softly.

Harry holds on to him, feeling the wiry strength in Louis’ arms as the music wraps around them and they sway together in a moment out of time.


	6. When all these stars are gone

“I think there’s a ghost in my room.”

Gemma looks up from her book and stares at him. They’ve been sat in the garden for an hour in companionable silence and Harry can tell from his sister’s expression that she thinks this is a wind-up. “Really.”

“Really. I’m not joking; I think my bedroom’s haunted.”

Gemma sighs, marks her place in the book, and sets it down on the grass. “All right. Tell me all about it.”

Harry’s been thinking about Louis a lot lately. It’s kept him distracted from exams, and the last few weeks of school, and the tests their GP had sent him for after his mum made him go for a check-up. Harry doesn’t like having blood taken, and they’d taken a _lot_. There had been X-rays too, and an ECG, which had taken far longer than it should because Harry couldn’t keep still. But all the sitting around in waiting rooms had given him the opportunity to really _think_ and he needs to talk about it to someone, even if they’re bound to think he’s insane.

“I see someone. In my room.”

“See someone,” Gemma repeats dubiously.

“A boy. Not much older than me. He just … appears. Once a month, around full moon.” Harry prides himself on having worked that one out. Louis doesn’t necessarily appear at the full moon - it’s been one or two days either side on all but one occasion - but it’s always around then. He’s noticed too that Louis doesn’t seem to be aware of the passing of time: as far as Louis is concerned, they see each other every night. He can’t tell from Gemma’s expression what she makes of all this but she listens patiently as he works his way through it, and that’s something.

“Why do you think it’s a ghost and not a dream?” she asks.

“Because we can’t leave my room,” Harry says - and, really, that had been the moment he’d started to panic, just a little. “The last time, I said let’s go and get something to eat, he was right behind me as I opened the door, and then he was just … gone. That’s never happened before.” Harry swallows around the sudden lump in his throat, the rush of adrenaline as the memory of that night return - the crushing, suffocating darkness of the landing that had settled around him, over him like a shroud, choking the air from his lungs as he struck out desperately for the sanctuary of his bedroom. He’d made it, and slammed the door shut behind him, but Louis was still gone and now Harry is starting to panic that maybe he won’t see Louis again, ever. “He always stays with me until I fall asleep.”

“Maybe you just had a panic attack,” Gemma says gently. “You were in the middle of your exams. And, you know, you and Zayn.”

“What about me and Zayn?” Harry glances at the open back door. His mother is painting the kitchen but he can hear her singing along to the radio and there’s no sign she’s heard anything.

Gemma laughs. “Don’t be an idiot. Mum knows, I know, everyone knows.”

“I know you know. I just don’t want to discuss it.”

“Only because Mum gave you the sex talk.”

Harry groans. “Don’t remind me.”

“She’s just trying to help. Be supportive. You should invite him round for dinner.”

“Maybe,” Harry says, unconvinced. 

“Look at you.” Gemma leans back in her deckchair and eyes him thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s why you see this, this _Louis_. You want Zayn, or maybe you _don’t_ want Zayn - who knows what goes on in your weird head-”

“Thanks.”

“-but the point is that he’s not _real_. You do know that, right? Your room is not haunted, Harry.”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles. “Ok.”

Gemma doesn’t look convinced by his lie but she goes back to her book and he dozes for a while, and he dreams - a normal dream, as much as anything in his life is normal these days. It’s one of what Harry has started to call _Louis dreams_ , because he associates them with Louis without really knowing why. They’re strange dreams, like little glimpses of someone else’s life: digging for shells on a beach Harry doesn’t recognise, sand between his toes, a little blonde girl he doesn’t recognise tugging on his hand; an old-fashioned cinema, old films flickering across the screen; strange coins in his hand and cigarette smoke in his lungs; running down a street that seems almost familiar, feet clattering on the cobbles, laughter on his lips. They’re not _bad_ dreams, not like the dizzying, fragmented nightmares he keeps having, but he always wakes up with an unsettling sense of loss, a hollow ache in his heart that nothing seems to ease.

~*~

Harry has just about given up hope of seeing Louis again. He’s so anxious he can’t sleep, so he spends long hours pacing in the narrow confines of his room, his panic increasing with every hour that passes without a sign of the other man, so wound up he paces right through until dawn. He can’t stop thinking, that’s the trouble. He knows he’s being ridiculous; there are plenty of rational explanations for Louis’ appearance in his dreams and he's already made a fool of himself by even mentioning his theory to Gemma. There are just so many things on his mind: Zayn, his exam results, the prospect of another year at school outside the protective enclave of Zayn and Liam and Niall's friendship and, just to round off the great month Harry's having, they've had a letter to tell them that his dad's case is going to appeal, so there's going to be another court case and more reporters and the whole thing dragged up all over again.

His mum cries for days when they get the letter. She reads it again and again, until finally Gemma takes it from her hand, goes out into the garden, and ceremoniously burns it in such an over-dramatic way their mum can't help laughing and the three of them end the evening sat on the grass watching the sunset, sharing a bottle of wine and the dinner Harry cooks. It's _nice_ in a way that anything even remotely linked to his dad hasn't been for a long, long time, and seeing his mum smiling a genuine smile again feels like the best thing in the world.

He's only had one glass of wine with dinner but, as he makes his way upstairs, Harry feels increasingly unsteady, and he cleans his teeth as quickly as he can, stumbles to his room, and inelegantly strips off his clothes before tumbling into bed. He's asleep within seconds, consciousness spiralling down into an all-consuming darkness...

...and _noise_ , all around him, sound he can feel in his bones, a rumbling, primeval roar. He's cold too; so cold he can't feel his hands. There's nothing but darkness around him but Harry smells smoke; acrid, choking smoke, the smell getting stronger and stronger. He opens his mouth to yell a warning - to _who_ , he's not quite sure - but the smoke fills his lungs and he's choking, he's _dying_ -

"Harry!"

He sits bolt upright in bed, his hands flying up instinctively to hold on to Louis as he struggles to breathe.

"It's all right, Harry," he dimly hears Louis saying. "It's all right." Louis is rubbing his back; strong, comforting strokes that somehow work to calm the frantic pounding of Harry's heart. "It's all right."

Harry buries his face in Louis' shoulder, breathing in the warm earthy smell of him - no perfume this time - and feeling the steady, reassuring pulse at his throat. He knows he's probably hurting Louis, the way he's hanging on so tightly, but Louis doesn't complain and Harry wonders if Louis has missed him too. He gets his answer when Louis brings his hand up to tilt Harry's head, holding him still so that Louis can kiss him.

"I lost you," Harry whispers into Louis' shoulder, later, when they're lying close together, Harry wrapped around Louis, sweat and come cooling on their skin. He feels Louis' hand tighten its grip on his hip.

"No, you didn't. You know that."

"You weren't here." Harry knows he sounds childish but he doesn't care. "Why weren't you here?"

There's a long silence and then Louis sighs and says, "Harry, I have to go away."

Harry's been _expecting_ it, in a way he can't quite explain, but it still feels like a knife in his gut that Louis has actually said the words. "When?" he asks.

"The day after tomorrow."

Harry bites his lip. "Are you coming back?"

Another long silence. Harry wishes he could see Louis' face. "You can't ask me that, Harry."

"Why? Because I-"

"Harry." Louis' voice is very quiet but there's a undertone to it that Harry hasn't heard before. "I'll do my best. I want to come back, I do." He pulls away suddenly and Harry makes a sound of protest but Louis is only reaching for his jacket, discarded on the floor. "I got you something," he says as he turns back. "Something to remember me by."

_Don't go_ , Harry wants to say. _Stay with me_. He looks down at the strange little object Louis is pressing into his hand; it's cold to the touch and slippery smooth - some sort of metal object - but it's too dark to make out any detail. "What is it?"

"It's a plane," Louis explains gently. "My plane."

And just like that Harry hears the engine roar again and he _knows_ : where his dreams have come from and how they end, how they always end, and his heart clenches in panic. "I don't-"

"Please, Harry." There's an odd note of desperation in Louis' voice. "I want you to have it. Something from me. Something _real_."

Harry falls asleep with the toy plane clenched tightly in his hand and Louis curled up against his side but when he wakes up the next morning they’re both gone.


	7. Living but I've already died

Harry has never seen Louis by day but Harry somehow knows that he was born to walk in the sun. Harry longs to see him like that, the skin Harry sees only in silvered, shadowed tones gilded by its light. He wants to know whether Louis is telling the truth when he says his eyes are blue, and he wants to see Louis laugh and frown and cry and pout, unable to use the night to hide his emotions from Harry's eyes. The darkness makes it too easy for Louis to keep Harry out and Harry has never had much time for secrets, not when his own are so easily laid bare for Louis. He doesn’t think Louis is hiding anything really _bad_ \- although he notices that Louis hasn’t mentioned Hannah since the night of the dance - but he’s careful about what he lets Harry see and that frustrates Harry and enraptures him in equal measure.

There are some things Louis has no defences against though. The first time Harry pushes him back determinedly and gives the first blowjob of his life - awkward and unpractised and probably terrible - Louis seems completely overwhelmed, fisting a hand in his mouth and making small, hurt sounds before coming so hard Harry thinks he's actually passed out. 

"How did you- how did you even know how to do that?" Louis asks, afterwards, hand combing through Harry's hair, still smiling and relaxed and more open than Harry has ever seen him. He still sounds out of breath too and Harry can't help grinning; he's made Louis feel so good and it makes _him_ feel good, so good he doesn't even really care that he hasn’t come himself. If this is all just a dream - a way of his brain trying to process everything that’s happening in his life - then Harry isn’t quite sure what that says about his psyche. 

“Was it good?” Harry asks, suddenly uncertain. ”Did I do it right?” 

Louis snorts and presses his thumb against Harry’s mouth, tracing the line of his lower lip. “It was better than _good_ ,” he says, and Harry’s heart swells with pride. “How did you know how to do that?” 

"Research," Harry tells him. "Mostly Google." 

He feels Louis' confusion in the sudden tension in his body. "Who's this _Google_?" 

Biting down on his laughter, Harry says, "it's not a _person_. It's a thing. Like, like a book. A big book that tells you things." He’s spent a lot of time in the local library recently, stepping over the used condoms and discarded needles strewn across the path to get to it because he doesn’t have any way of getting online at home. 

"Oh." Louis seems to be thinking about this for a while, because he then says, "I'm glad it's not a person." 

Harry turns his head, trying to discern Louis' expression. "What are you talking about?" 

Louis rolls them over so that Harry is on his back with Louis looming over him. "Because you're mine.” 

_Mine_ . Harry knows that Louis doesn’t intend for Harry to notice the slight waver in his voice as he says the word, an unconscious betrayal of all the things Louis can’t say and Harry won’t call attention to. But he can’t help smiling as he says teasingly, “Would you have been jealous then?” 

“Maybe,” Louis prevaricates, teasing in turn. 

Louis’ hands rest against Harry’s biceps, a firm pressure holding him in place. They fit so perfectly together, Harry thinks. Like they were meant for this, meant for each other, and it doesn’t make sense in any rational world but somehow, in the moonlight, it does. And there are things he should probably care about but somehow doesn't, not like this, not when Louis is _here_ , as real as Harry needs him to be. 

~*~

It’s the hottest July of the decade, according to the woman who runs the paper shop down the road, and it feels like it as Harry and Zayn make their fifth trip down the stairs of Louis Field’s house, carrying the last cardboard box between them. Volunteering to help clear the attic after Field fell over his garden rake and broke his ankle had seemed like a good idea at the time but it’s hot and dusty and exhausting work and Harry can’t wait to get finished so he can head home and take the very long and very cold shower that has become pretty much all he wants in life. 

“Remind me why I signed up for this,” Zayn grumbles as they manoeuvre the box around the turn on the landing. 

Harry flashes him a grin. “Because you love me.” 

Zayn tries and fails to contain a smile. “Oh, yeah.” 

And Zayn _does_ love him, and Harry thinks he might love him back. It feels like they’ve been dancing around each other for months, neither quite sure how to put it into words but it’s starting to make sense and Harry thinks there’s some irony in that, because he has exactly seven more weeks before Zayn goes off to university, results day permitting, and Harry’s proud of him for making it, for getting out, but he’s dreading the day Zayn leaves all the same. 

“Rest for a sec, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Harry could do with a break himself. 

They sit on the stairs, not too close because it’s too hot for that. Field’s house is nothing like Harry’s, although the layout is the same and they were built at the same time. It’s warm where Harry’s house is cold, light where Harry’s is dark. Somehow it’s not just the decor; it’s more than that, something in the fabric of the house itself that Harry can’t really put his finger on. 

It’s been a week since he last saw Louis and Harry tells himself he isn’t counting down the days until the next time. He feels guiltyabout it though, and the worst part of it is that he doesn’t know who he most feels guilty about. It feels like he’s cheating on both Louis and Zayn, even though Louis isn’t even _real_ , and it’s getting to the point where he’s seriously thinking about trying to get some professional help to deal with whatever Louis represents, whatever _issues_ he needs to work out, and the only thing stopping him is the memory of Louis’ words, _I have to go away. The day after tomorrow_ , which means that Harry only has one more night with Louis; once he’s gone, and Zayn’s gone, Harry will be alone anyway. 

The other side of it - the part that he doesn’t really like to think about - is that, even if Louis is just a figment of his imagination, his subconscious has seemingly already decided Louis’ fate. It’s not hard to join the dots, to recognise the connections between the recurring dreams of fire and falling on one hand, and the little plane Louis pressed into his hand, the single wing sewn onto a jacket. He’s in love with an echo of the past, a boy with no future. 

“Hey,” Zayn says, jolting Harry out of his introspection. “Wake up.” 

“Sorry,” Harry apologises. 

Somehow they make it down to the kitchen, where Field is sitting in a chair with his foot propped up on a cushion, beaming at them. 

“Thanks, lads. Just pop it down over there, with the others.” 

“Do you want us to help unpacking it?” Harry asks, as they carefully place the box in the corner of the kitchen. 

“No, no,” Field says easily. “Most of it’s going to the tip, anyway. It can wait until I’m back on my feet.” 

“If you need any help…” 

“You’ve done plenty, lad. And you look a bit pale. Go home and have a sit down." 

Harry starts to move towards the door but as he does so his arm catches the stacked boxes next to the one they’ve just brought down and sends the top one flying. Harry doesn’t react in time to stop it and he can only watch in open-mouthed horror as it bursts open and its contents are scattered across the floor. 

“Shit,” Zayn says helpfully. 

“S-sorry,” Harry stutters, glancing at Field. 

“It’s all right, son. There’s nothing breakable in there.” 

It’s a strange collection of odds and ends, Harry sees as he and Zayn crouch down to start picking things up. A yellowed wedding veil, wrapped in tissue paper. Notebooks and a baby’s vaccination card with Field’s name written on it in faded ink. A toy car, heavy as lead, paint chipping off it. And a bundle of letters, written in flowing old-fashioned script, tied up with ribbon. 

“Meant to get rid of that lot years ago,” Field says. “My mother was a hoarder; could never throw anything away.” 

“My mum’s the same,” Zayn tells him, grinning. “She just throws everything in a cupboard and shuts the door.” 

“I’m not one to talk. I keep saying to the wife that I’ll empty out the shed one day but it’s been thirty years and I haven’t started yet.” 

Harry isn’t listening to their chatter. He stares at the bundle in his hands, oblivious to anything except the creased sepia-tinged photograph that has slipped out of one of the letters. There’s no mistaking it, no possibility of error: he’d know those features anywhere, mapped out with lips and fingertips so many times. In the heat of the day Harry feels only searing cold as he holds the photograph and stares at the words written neatly along the bottom edge of it. 

_Louis, 1943._

“Harry? You ok?” Zayn asks. He reaches for Harry, concerned, and Harry’s stomach lurches. 

“I-I have to-” He can’t even finish the sentence; he scrambles to his feet, still clutching the photograph of Louis. _His_ Louis. “I have to go.” 

He hears Zayn calling after him, the confusion in his voice, and maybe tomorrow he’ll feel guilty about that, but for now Harry just has to get away.


	8. If you want to, I will take you with me

It feels like an anticlimax, an unexpected calm after so many weeks and months of confusion, but as Harry stands in front of the memorial stone, hand shielding his eyes as he reads the inscription for the twentieth time - as if repetition will somehow erase the words etched into cold granite and replace them with something more palatable - he feels only grief and regret, not the peace, the absolution he’d hoped for. Name, rank, and age don't do justice to a life that shines - that shone - as brightly as Louis', to his sharp wit and fierce tenderness, to all that he is and all that he could have been before his life came to a sudden, terrible end in the summer of 1943.

A small party of walkers go past. It's August; the middle of the tourist season. It's also nearly the end of summer and yet Harry's barely given a thought to that lately. He can't think about going back to school, going back to his life, the present and the future. Harry knows he's been miserable company these last few weeks, obsessively researching everything he could find on every facet of Louis' life and times. Through it all Zayn's been patient with him, coming along today on what could easily have been a wild goose chase. He hasn't even questioned Harry about what they’re doing here, about the hours Harry has been spending in the library, and that makes Harry feels even more guilty. One more night, he tells himself. One more night and he won’t see Louis again. Louis is going away and Harry knows what Louis doesn’t - that he won’t be coming back, and he looks again at the letters of Louis’ name set in stone and tries to tell himself that it was quick, at the end, that it wasn’t the noise and terror and roaring fire of his nightmares.

He stands there for a long time, and he’s not sure why, because Louis isn’t here, entombed beneath granite and rock. It’s a memorial not a grave and he doesn’t feel any sense of Louis here, no whispers of him in the warm summer breeze, no reflections of him in the tiny stream that runs alongside the footpath.

“Come on,” he says eventually, and Zayn follows him as he turns and walks back to the road without a backward glance.

They eat lunch at a small country pub half a mile from the memorial, sitting at a table tucked away in a corner because the landlord eyes them with extreme suspicion and makes it obvious he wants to keep them as far away from the other customers as possible. Harry doesn’t mind; he wants to talk without anyone listening in. He just doesn’t know how to start though, and Zayn seems to understand because he gives Harry a quick smile and says casually:

“I’m going round to see Niall tomorrow, if you want to come.”

“Is he allowed to have visitors?”

“He’s got a tag, Harry, he’s not banged up.” Zayn snags a chip off Harry’s plate, grinning. “Liam’s mum and dad have banned him from going round there, though. And he’s not supposed to go within 100 yards of the school-”

“Unsurprising.”

“Yeah, well, he’s pissed they didn’t let him go in and get his A level results.”

“Maybe he can set fire to another bit of it then,” Harry says, and he doesn’t mean it to have an edge to it but somehow that’s how it comes out and Zayn gives him a long look before he shrugs.

“Yeah, maybe.”

A couple with two small children sit down at a table a few places over. The adults look tired, the children sulky and argumentative. Harry watches as the older boy starts methodically hitting his brother over the head with a menu, the parents too busy having a low-volume argument over who, exactly, forgot to pack some sandwiches for this excursion to pay attention to what’s going on, and it’s just so normal it’s almost painful, another reminder of a world he hasn’t been a part of for a long time.

Dragging his eyes away from them, Harry returns his attention to Zayn. “How come he’s not in prison or anything? Hasn’t he done it before?”

“Niall? He does the _butter wouldn’t melt_ face at the magistrates and they let him off every time. The last time they asked him if he’d learned his lesson and he said no, and they _still_ let him off.”

Harry nods. It occurs to him how much his sensibilities have changed, that it doesn’t particularly phase him that Niall is some kind of expert on accelerants and combustion, and that beneath the surface calm there are darker, deeper waters.

“Take your tablet,” Zayn says.

“Thanks, mum.”

“Hey, your mum will ask, and you know what she’ll say if she finds out you haven’t taken it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry says, aware that he sounds like a sulky teenager and not really caring.

Zayn rolls his eyes. “When’s your next hospital appointment?”

“Next week.” And Harry really doesn’t want to talk about that; it’s another reminder of a future he can’t bear to think about right now, a future without Louis, without Zayn. Across from them, one of the children starts wailing, and Harry and Zayn roll their eyes at each other.

“I was thinking,” Zayn says, and the way he says it, too casually to be entirely natural, instantly puts Harry on edge. “Once I go… I mean, I’m not coming back. Not here.”

“Oh,” Harry says.

“Maybe, when I’m settled at uni, you could, you could come and stay.” When Harry doesn’t reply Zayn adds, “If you want to, obviously. And I’m in a student flat, so it’ll probably be shit. But it’s away, and you could stay over without my mum banging on the door every five minutes seeing what we’re doing.”

“Um,” Harry says intelligently, because he’s genuinely thrown, having assumed that Zayn would want to leave him behind along with everything else. “That would be good.” He clears his throat, trying not to think about all the things they could do with some privacy and a bedroom door that locks. “All of it. Even if your flat’s shit. I don’t care.”

“Really?” Zayn looks just as flustered as Harry feels and Harry wonders if Zayn expected him to say no, if they’ve been as clueless as each other. “Ok.”

They’re smiling shyly at each other, and Harry thinks they probably both look like idiots to anyone watching but he can’t bring himself to care what anyone else thinks, because for the first time in a long time he has a future to look forward to.

“You want to go home?” Harry asks, trying to be casual about it. “We can get an earlier bus, if you like.”

Zayn smiles and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, ok. Everyone’s out at mine until seven at the earliest. We could go to mine. If you like.”

“I do like,” Harry tells him, and when the bus comes they sit on the deserted top deck and hold hands in the sunshine and it feels like a weight has been lifted from Harry’s heart.

 

~*~

_It’s a dream_ , Harry tells himself, frantically fumbling for the door handle behind him as the suffocating darkness closes in around him, but rationality has no chance against the panic crushing his chest and leaching the oxygen from his lungs. He knows he’ll be safe if he can just get the door open, if he can just step back into his bedroom, but his sweat-slickened hands can’t get a grip on the handle and then it’s too late.

He opens his mouth to cry out, to call for help, to wake Gemma and his mum, but no sound comes out and he feels his legs collapsing under him as he falls. It’s familiar, this, but there’s no howling gale, no roar of engines or lancing flame.

_This isn’t Louis’ death_ , he thinks, in a last moment of crystal-clear lucidity. _This is mine_.

And then there’s nothing but the darkness.

~*~

 

The music is there on the edges of awareness, hauntingly familiar, a light in the darkness guiding him home. Harry follows the sound, the scratchy, imperfect notes bringing him back to Louis’ lips on his and Louis’ hand in his hair.

“There you are,” Louis breathes, and Harry opens his eyes to see Louis smiling down at him and his heart hurts.

“I was falling,” he mumbles.

“I know.” And Louis kisses him again, stubble scraping Harry’s cheek, pressing Harry down into the bed. “But I’ve got you.”

The pulse in Louis’ throat is strong and constant against Harry’s fingertips, his skin warm under Harry’s touch. “I know this song,” he whispers into Louis’ mouth.

“Yes, you do.” Louis pulls back, smiling down at Harry. “It’s our song. Or-” He stops, and Harry thinks he can see him blushing. “Is that too much?”

“No.” Harry is very clear on that, even if he’s not that clear on anything else. “It can be our song.”

Louis’ smile is blinding, lighting up his face, and Harry thinks it must be his imagination that he can see the blue in Louis’ eyes. He’s about to say something, make a joke of it, but then Louis grins impishly and slips a hand between them to pinch Harry’s nipple and it quickly descends into a fight Harry isn’t particularly sorry to lose.

Louis sleeps for a while, later, but Harry doesn’t, not wanting to close his eyes and risk Louis slipping away from him. He just watches Louis instead, the play of his dreams in the fluttering of his closed eyelids and the fingers twitching against Harry’s hand. And this time it’s Harry who kisses Louis awake, smoothing his hair back from his forehead as awareness returns, and Louis who smiles lazily up at him, his face open and relaxed in a way Harry has never seen before.

“I wish I could see you in the sun,” Harry blurts out, and it sounds so ridiculous, so childish, that he blushes and bites his lip, but Louis doesn’t laugh at him; he just frowns, and says:

“You can. Of course you can.”

“But I only see you at night,” Harry says stubbornly.

Louis shakes his head and sits up, swinging his legs out of the narrow bed and reaching for a shirt that’s slung over the back of the chair. Harry grumbles at the loss of body heat as Louis gets up but Louis ignores him, dressing quickly.

“Where are you going?”

“Outside.”

Panic seizes hold of Harry again. “You can’t- I can’t. Out there-”

Louis shakes his head, smiling. “It’s all right, Harry. Come on, get dressed.”

Harry gives in; he gets out of bed and gets dressed, not bothering to put on his shoes because he knows what will happen when Louis opens the door and they step out onto the landing. This is it, this is the end, and he wants to take hold of Louis and wrap himself around him and never let him go, trace the sepia-toned lines of him and somehow keep the darkness at bay. But he won’t - can’t - and Louis watches him with that familiar, fond smile on his face and says:

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, and he takes hold of the hand Louis offers, the solid, reassuring grip of him, glancing round to get a last look at the bedroom they’ve shared all these months; the unkempt, unmade bed, the record player in the corner, the little plane sitting proudly on the desk. Louis’ world and his world - and he’s glad, suddenly, to have had this, their worlds somehow bleeding together, a tear in the fabric of history they’ve somehow fallen through to reach this, wherever _this_ is.

“Let’s go,” Louis says, grinning impishly as he opens the door, and Harry has to close his eyes against the sudden, blinding light of the sun.


	9. Coda

It starts to rain towards the end, a warm summer rain that feels like a caress against his skin, washing away the salt of tears and softening the lines of grief on the faces around him. Someone - Niall, he thinks - shifts restlessly besides him, someone else - probably Liam - coughs. All muted, as soft and indistinct as the shapes and colours around him.

There are a few reporters waiting for them outside the gate when they depart, but they’re being remarkably respectful. Then again, he knows one lot have already had some equipment stolen and Sky News have had their entire _van_ stolen from outside the school so he suspects they’ve all decided to keep a much lower profile than they’d had initially intended. The street is quiet, an unexpected and curiously timeless quiet he thinks he should feel unsettled by and isn’t. He hesitantly mentions it to Gemma, later, when they’re walking back to the house with her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, and she nods and says, “I felt it too,” and he wonders how much she knows or guesses.

“He never really told me either,” she says abruptly, when they’re in the kitchen and he’s filling the kettle because he has the feeling that’s just what he _should_ do in the circumstances. Make a pot of tea, say nothing, pretend life goes on in just the same way it always has.

“I haven’t said anything, to anyone else.” He’s not sure why it should be so important that he reassures her about that but he feels that somehow it is, whether she hears it right now or not.

“I hate reporters,” she says. “But I hate the gawkers more. The ones who know nothing about your life but think they should.”

He nods. She’s not talking to him as such; he’s background noise, a bit-part player in her life story. He makes her the cup of tea and then he goes upstairs, up the steep, narrow staircase, and he stands by the bedroom window and watches the rain fall and just _breathes_. He’s not sure what he expected to feel, and he’s not sure what he actually feels, but he knows this is the last time he will ever stand here and he wants to prolong the illusion for a few more minutes and pretend that time is not ticking steadily away.

He straightens a few things up before he leaves, arranging a couple of textbooks more neatly and picking up the little toy aeroplane that’s fallen on the floor. Gemma is still sitting in the kitchen when he goes back downstairs, her mug of tea, untouched, cradled in her hands. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t notice the faded photograph, retrieved from its hiding place under the bed, clutched in his hand.

“Call me if you need anything,” he tells her. She nods, not really listening. He scribbles his mobile number on a scrap of paper and leaves it on the counter.

The rain has stopped by the time he gets outside. He stands for a moment, uncertain, and then Louis Field comes out of the house next door, carrying a stack of plantpots, still in his best trousers and starched shirt. They acknowledge each other without words, an unspoken understanding. He walks over to the fence between the gardens and watches for a while as Field sets out the plantpots in front of the shed and brings out a tray of bedding plants ready to be re-potted.

“They’ll look good,” he offers. His voice sounds scratchy and ill-used and he coughs, trying to clear his throat.

Field shrugs. “Bit of colour. Looks nice in autumn.”

“It’s still summer.”

Field gives him a small smile. “Weather’s changing. Can’t you feel it, lad?”

Suddenly awkward, he holds out the photograph. “I think this is yours,” he says.

Field squints at it, frowns, and then his face clears. “Oh, aye. Didn’t expect to see that again. Keep it if you like, lad. I’m not one for keepsakes.”

Zayn laughs. He can’t help it; the laughter bubbles up from somewhere deep down inside his soul and he can’t hold it back. It’s bitter, choking laughter born of grief and loss and the searing knowledge that Harry was never really his to lose in the first place, that Harry was taken from him long before he slipped into that last unending sleep. He laughs until he has no more tears to cry and then, later, after he’s wiped his eyes and blown his nose on an impeccably clean old-fashioned cotton handkerchief with a neat embroidered L in one corner, Field makes them both a cup of tea and they sit companionably together on the bench outside Field’s back door.

The photograph rests between them. Zayn tries to avoid looking at it but somehow his eyes are drawn to the sepia-toned face of a boy sixty years dead, frozen in time, forever young. Harry’s ghost. _Louis_.

“You were named after him,” he says to Field, feeling stupid.

Field chuckles; answer enough.

He sees Anne arrive home, pale and wan, but she doesn’t notice him and he doesn’t try to attract her attention. She’ll be gone soon, he knows; she’s been offered a new, better paid job in another town and she has no reason now not to take it. She’s getting her life back and Zayn’s happy for her, and for Gemma. He thinks they deserve a new start, a new home, somewhere where they’re not constantly reminded of the morning Anne found Harry cold and unmoving in his bed.

And maybe Zayn needs that too.

The sky is clouding over and it’s getting cold, cold enough that Zayn is starting to wish that he’d brought a jacket with him. “I should go,” he says.

Field nods and holds out his hand for Zayn’s cup.

His father is waiting for him and he starts the car as Zayn emerges from Field’s garden, impatient to be off. The car is already loaded with almost everything Zayn owns and on the front seat his father has carefully laid out all the instructions for his new university flat. His new life, his new direction; the gift Harry gave him.

“Ready?” his father asks. He doesn’t ask about the funeral. Zayn knows he’s trying to be kind, letting Zayn bring it up if he wants to. Zayn doesn’t really want to talk about it though, not yet, not when the emotion is still so raw. One day, maybe, he’ll talk, and he’ll finish the drawing he started of Harry; sooner rather than later, before his sense memory of Harry starts to fade.

Zayn looks back at the house, at the window of Harry’s room. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”


End file.
